


since my goodbye to you

by stevenstamkos



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Detroit Red Wings, Flashbacks, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Nostalgia, Russian Five, Vintage Wings, carrying a torch for someone for 20 years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 09:46:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14952317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stevenstamkos/pseuds/stevenstamkos
Summary: It started in Helsinki, in August of 1989. Sergei was in his fourth season with the Red Army. He was 19.At the time, he hadn’t known anything about Detroit, or about Steve Yzerman, or about the Stanley Cup. He was at home in Moscow. If you had told him that he would come to Detroit for the dream of a Stanley Cup and the chance to play with one of the best players in the world—If you had told him about all that he would do, about the man he would become and the man he would fall in love with—But Sergei was only 19 at the time.





	since my goodbye to you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weird_situation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weird_situation/gifts).



> On Steve Yzerman’s birthday, Hannah texted me “If AO3 was around in the 90s, there would be fic of Stevie Y blowing the entire Russian Five.” There are no blowjobs and he’s involved with only one of the Russian Five, but this is for you Hannah.
> 
> This fic is pretty historically accurate, with many details and views pulled directly from various teammates' anecdotes as expressed in Keith Gave's [_The Russian Five_ book](https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Five-Espionage-Defection-Bribery/dp/1947165178/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1529525967&sr=1-1&keywords=the+russian+five) and Slava Fetisov's ["Red Army" documentary](https://www.amazon.com/Red-Army-Tatiana-Tarasova/dp/B00UEM9N98/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1529526023&sr=8-2&keywords=red+army+documentary). That being said, this is completely a work of fiction.
> 
> Warnings: one player suffers a very severe, career-ending injury. Another two players discuss one of them playing through injury. I do not condone the latter, but it's based on actual views expressed by these people.
> 
> Title from "From Russia With Love" by Matt Monro

_2012_

Nikita is wearing a cheap watch on his wrist, and he fiddles with it as Sergei shuffles things around in his office and gets the paperwork together. The kid is young—19, about the same age Sergei was when he made the same choice that Nikita is making now. He is quiet and serious and a little on edge, and Sergei can tell that he is nervous.

“You talked to Stevie already, yes?” Sergei asks.

“Yes,” Nikita says softly. He has a tendency to mumble. “Mr. Yzerman flew me to Tampa, with my mom. He said that the Lightning would pay for my shoulder surgery and the rehab after, and then I will play for them. In the U.S.”

Sergei wonders if this is how Valery Gushin felt 22 years ago, when Sergei left. When they all left. It’s hard, after all, to be the GM of a hockey team that bleeds young talented players who want to go to North America instead, leaving CSKA Moscow only a shadow of what it was in Sergei’s youth.

But if Sergei had been given the chance to sit here, like Nikita Kucherov—If, 22 years ago, Sergei were given the _choice_ —

“Okay,” he says abruptly. “I have your papers.”

He is not looking at Nikita, but he feels the surprise coming off him. He thinks that Nikita came in here expecting a fight, expecting the new GM of his team to try to hold him here against his will, the way Sergei was once held here against his will. But Sergei is not interested in reliving the past. Not in that way.

“You won’t tell me to stay?”

“I respect your decision to go. It would be good for CSKA if you stayed with us, but I understand why you want to go.”

Nikita fidgets and rubs at his watch again. “When I was a child, I had photos on my bedroom wall that I looked at every day. Photos of the Five, and those Cups you won. I used to dream that one day I would be like you and play in the NHL.”

Sergei nods. “It’s pretty hard, but you’ll be fine. And you will have Stevie there. He’s a good man; he will take care of you.”

“He was very kind, when we talked.”

“Yes, he is. And Steve is—When we played together—”

Sergei searches for the words, thinking hard. It is impossible to put Stevie into words, even after two decades. He gets up, paces a little, and then comes to sit on the corner of his desk, facing Nikita. It is less formal without the desk between them.

“Do you have someplace you need to be right now, Nikita?”

“I—What?”

“Are you in a hurry.”

“No, I’m…I drove here. I don’t have to be home for a few hours.”

“Would you like me to tell you about him then? About Stevie, I mean. You know that I played with him.”

Nikita’s eyes practically shine. “You’ll tell me about how you played with him?”

It’s a rare treat, Sergei knows, to hear it from his own mouth. He doesn’t do much talking, these days. But Nikita is special, is Sergei’s player who is leaving him to play with Steve Yzerman’s team, and he is special. It would help him to hear this from Sergei, probably. It would help Sergei, probably.

Sergei takes a deep breath and thinks back, all the way back to the beginning, so long ago, and still so close to the surface of his memory.

“You have to understand that the NHL is hard. Winning the Cup is hard. But you have teammates, and people who help you along the way, who support you. When I was there, I had the other members of the Five, and you know that story. But I also had a captain, The Captain…”

 

* * *

 

When Sergei talks about Detroit, people usually think that he is talking about his countrymen, the four other players that made up the famous Russian Five. And they aren’t wrong. Slava, Igor, Vladdie, and Kozzie—They were all a part of what made Detroit special.

And when Sergei talks about Detroit, people think that he is talking about those years, the struggles, the heartbreaking losses before those three Cups, the hockey fever and the disappointment that seemed to follow them season after season. And they aren’t wrong. All those years chasing the Cup together as brothers—They were what Detroit meant to him.

But when Sergei talks about Detroit, he is also talking about Steve Yzerman, because Stevie had his fingers all over the Wings, was at the heart of everything that the Wings did and were, in those days. And by extension, Steve was at the heart of Sergei, too.

 

It started in Helsinki, in August of 1989. Sergei was in his fourth season with the Red Army. He was 19.

At the time, he hadn’t known anything about Detroit, or about Steve Yzerman, or about the Stanley Cup. He was at home in Moscow. If you had told him that he would come to Detroit for the dream of a Stanley Cup and the chance to play with one of the best players in the world—If you had told him about all that he would do, about the man he would become and the man he would fall in love with—

But Sergei was only 19 at the time.

 

 

_1989_

The Soviet National Team training camp is in Finland, and it is very routine, like it is every year. They train hard. They play an exhibition game. They train some more. They win every game, because losing is not an option, and then they will return to Moscow.

Except that after one game, Sergei and Vladdie Konstantinov are pulled aside by an American journalist, who speaks quietly with them outside the dressing room in that Helsinki arena.

His name is Keith Gave. He is a reporter who works for the Detroit Red Wings in the NHL, and he shows Sergei and Vladdie a piece of paper saying that they have been chosen by the Red Wings in the 1989 NHL Draft.

Sergei looks at his name on the paper and says nothing.

What can he say? It is a surprise, but it means nothing. Defection, leaving the Soviet Union, it is impossible.

A few feet away, one of their always-present protectors hovers, watching them speak with the American. He is KGB, Sergei knows, there to make sure that every player who comes to Helsinki leaves with the team. He is proof, a reminder that this American man with his talk of an American team mean nothing here.

When Vladdie is shown his name on the list, he smiles widely, unable to hide his excitement as he looks from Sergei to the reporter and back. Sergei shuffles a little to shield him from their KGB friend’s eyes.

“Careful with your emotions, Vova,” he says, and Vladdie’s smile vanishes.

They are given business cards and papers, and last, they are each handed a small book about the Red Wings. Vladdie holds his forgotten in his hand, but Sergei flips through his, thumbing through the pages until he comes to an envelope hidden at the center. He closes the book and holds it behind his back, face blank, listening calmly to the American as his heart races in his chest.

If anyone—their KGB guards, the coaching staff, _anyone_ finds that envelope with what Sergei is sure is a secret message, he knows that there will be swift and merciless punishment like none he has ever experienced. In the Red Army, they do not tolerate traitors.

It is only when he is back in his room, alone, that he takes the envelope out of the book and reads the letter addressed to him. It is from the reporter, and it starts: “ _Dorogoi Sergei, Dobro pozhalovat’ v Detroyt…_ Dear Sergei, Welcome to Detroit…”

Sergei does not know very much about the NHL, not then. When asked about the Stanley Cup, Sergei knows to say, “Our players play for gold, not silver.” Nothing less than perfection.

In Moscow, they train 11 months a year, and Viktor Tikhonov is a strict coach who does not want his players to watch the North American game. Why should they? Everyone knows that Red Army is better, and that there is no way to leave. Better that way.

The reporter has written about how the Wings will do anything to help him defect, and there are promises of freedom and an enormous salary if he comes to Detroit. It is more money than Sergei has ever heard of, more than he could ever make in a career with CSKA Moscow. And the reporter writes about the great team in Detroit, the team of Steve Yzerman and Gordie Howe and other hockey greats.

Sergei opens the Red Wings book and flips to the page about Steve Yzerman, the captain. He can’t read much of the English written there, so he looks at the picture in the corner instead, the not-quite smile on Yzerman’s face, the high cheekbones and dark eyes staring out of the page. Steve Yzerman is young, not yet in his prime, and one of the best players in the world. Sergei remembers him from the gold medal game at the World Championship this year, when the Soviets took gold from the Canadians.

Steve Yzerman had not smiled when silver was placed around his neck. His eyes had found Sergei’s though, and he had dipped his head in a clear sign of respect. Sergei had looked away.

He keeps the book under his pillow throughout the rest of training camp, and he sneaks it out to flip through the pages at night, always coming back to that page and Steve Yzerman’s knowing, waiting eyes.

It is then, in a hotel room in Helsinki, that Sergei first begins to dream of Detroit.

 

 

_1990_

It is funny, really, that only four words change everything. Looking back on it, Sergei knows that those four words that he spoke in the lobby of a Portland, Oregon hotel on a cool July night were probably the most important words that he ever spoke in his life.

In the moment, it is easy to execute the plan, even knowing what getting caught means. He gets off the bus after an exhibition game in Portland, before the Red Army moves to Seattle for the Goodwill Games. He looks around and sees his man, makes eye contact, and he walks over with his hands in his pockets, as casual as he can. On the tip of his tongue are the four English words that he’d been taught, the words that he’d practiced over and over for weeks in preparation for this moment.

“Ready to go, Jim?”

And Jim Lites, vice president of the Detroit Red Wings, puts down his coffee and newspaper and puts a light hand on Sergei’s back, leading him out a back door and into the limo waiting for them.

And from the limo, to the airport, to a private plane and to Detroit.

 

* * *

 

“You left alone,” Nikita says. It is not a question.

Sergei knows that Nikita will be moving to the U.S. with the support of his parents, with Russia waiting for him to return with arms open.

It was not like that, in Sergei’s youth. At the time, when he left, it was forever.

“I was alone at first, yes,” he says. “Everyone who defected, we were gone quietly and without our families. We didn’t know what would happen to them. It was a hard choice, knowing that we could maybe never see our families again, because we didn’t know if we would ever be welcomed back home. Eventually, for each of us, we all reached the point where Moscow became a cage, and we wanted freedom more than we feared for our safety. It was very hard, very heartbreaking.

“But it will not be like that for you. You will have your family, and you will always be Russia’s son. And your team will also be your family, in America.”

“Like the Red Wings were for you.”

“Yes. For me, I quickly found a family in Detroit, an amazing family of teammates, and it all started with Steve.”

 

* * *

 

“You got a girlfriend, Sergei?” Jim asks, while they are in the air.

Sergei shakes his head.

“We were gonna find you an American girlfriend, so defecting would be easier. That would’ve taken too long though. Best to get you away quick and easy, before the Soviets realize you’re missing.”

He is speaking English too quickly for Sergei to understand everything, so he only presses his lips together and stares out the window.

“For a bit there Stevie even offered to pretend to be your Canadian boyfriend. Can you imagine? I thought Mike Ilitch was gonna have a stroke. But that’s Stevie, always ready to lay everything down for the team. You’ll like him, Sergei. You’re staying with him for a bit, you know, since he’s staying in Detroit for the summer.”

Sergei is watching the clouds race by underneath the plane and misses this piece of news, but he finds out soon enough, when they get off the plane and Jim takes him to Steve Yzerman’s house. It is a nice house in a nice part of Detroit, big and fancy and in the heart of Bloomfield Hills. Sergei is finally starting to wrap his head around how much an NHL player makes, because this house—this house, with its big windows and its pool and its fancy car in front—This is a house he couldn’t even dream of buying in Moscow.

Steve opens the door wearing a Red Wings t-shirt and loose gray sweatpants, barely looking sleep-rumpled despite the early hour. This is a detail that Sergei remembers, even 22 years later. It is not his first time seeing Steve Yzerman, not after the past two World Championships, but it is the first time that he sees Steve Yzerman and understands the true gravity of what he’s done, of what their relationship is now.

Not as enemies on their national teams, but as teammates.

“This is Sergei,” Jim says. “He’s here but he’s not here. Sergei, Steve Yzerman, team captain.”

Steve looks at Sergei, and his eyes are those same dark eyes as Sergei remembers from the Detroit book last summer. He seems to connect the dots quickly, his surprise replaced with calm acceptance, and then he nods and opens the door further. “You run into any trouble?”

“Not yet, but I got a call from the State Department and I’m guessing there are more calls coming, so I’d keep my head down if I were you two. We’ve got an international incident brewing.”

Steve leads Sergei and Jim inside his house, and he offers them both food, which they both decline. It is past five in the morning. Sergei wishes he slept better on the little private plane. He can’t stop staring at Steve.

It feels different seeing Steve Yzerman off the ice. Sergei has always admired his hockey, and right now, he feels a little starstruck standing in Steve’s home, holding his things.

“You can stay here, Sergei,” Steve tells him, showing Sergei to a spacious guest room. “Bathroom is down the hall. I’m that way, so holler if you need me. You got that? Bathroom there. Me there.” He points each time and then claps Sergei on the shoulder. “Get some rest. I have to talk to Jim.”

Steve is at the door when Sergei finds it in him to say “Thank you,” soft and a little awkward in English.

But it gets Steve to turn and smile, and when he does, he transforms from the calm captain to someone really quite beautiful. “Not a problem. And Sergei—Welcome to Detroit. You’ll like it, promise.”

And then Sergei is left alone with the one suitcase he brought over from Moscow, still in the game-day suit that he’d worn to the last game he would ever play for the Red Army. He puts the suitcase down and takes the suit off, and then he crawls into the bed and closes his eyes.

 

The international incident that Jim spoke of is long and drawn-out. There are many calls—to Mike Ilitch the team owner, to Jim Lites the vice president, to Steve the team captain.

Sergei has to take a few calls to tell the American and Soviet governments that he is happy and left of his own free will and that the Red Wings did not kidnap him in Portland. It takes several back-and-forth calls for them to believe him.

There is talk of CSKA’s Red Army suing the Red Wings. This worries Sergei a lot. It worries Steve much less.

“Mike Ilitch has pretty good lawyers,” is all Steve says, and then he points to the framed puck on his bedroom wall, explaining what it is to Sergei. “My first goal puck. You’ll get one too, when you score your first goal with us. I’ll get it framed for you.”

“Puck good. Nice,” Sergei says, and touches the glass gently.

Steve grins at him. They get along well enough without an interpreter.

In the meantime, Sergei simply enjoys himself in America. Steve has a backyard pool behind his house, and Sergei spends many hours in there, doing laps to keep in shape. Sometimes, Steve joins him, doing silent laps of his own.

That is something that Sergei learned about Steve. He is a quiet kind of guy.

But he is patient and kind while teaching Sergei English, always making sure to speak slowly and explain the meaning of new words. He opens his home to Sergei. He takes him around Detroit and shows him the fast American cars and the rink and the sights, and he even lets Sergei drive most of the time, even though he tells Sergei that he drives too fast.

(It is true. Sergei loves to drive fast. It feels like freedom, like America.)

Sergei starts working out with Steve, the two of them pushing each other to be better, faster, stronger. He also discovers Steve’s game tape, and he spends hours watching it all, the puck effortless on Steve’s stick. Goal after goal, beautiful, just like Sergei remembers from the World Championships.

The commentary is scratchy and in English and he doesn’t understand much of it, but it doesn’t matter. Sergei is in love.

It is a summer that Sergei looked back on often, over the next few years.

 

The ice is smaller. That is the first thing that Sergei notices when he takes a look at the ice, that first day at training camp. He has played on smaller North American ice before, but only for short tournaments, a handful of games at a time.

The second thing he notices is how Steve moves in the room, like it belongs to him. It _does_ belong to him. The boys look at him with respect and love and a little bit of awe, and Sergei is reminded of Slava Fetisov and how beloved he was in the Soviet dressing room. Steve greets each of the boys after the summer like they are all his best friends, and Sergei doesn’t understand half the things coming out of their mouths, but he can tell that each and every player in the room is happy to see Steve.

Across the room, Steve catches Sergei’s eye and just barely nods.

Sergei turns away and focuses on his own equipment, lacing up the skates that he brought with him from Moscow. He stands and carefully pulls on the Red Wings practice jersey for the first time. His helmet has a Red Wings sticker on the side.

There are no gloves in his stall, no stick.

He looks for Steve again, but Steve is now talking to one of the assistant coaches, so Sergei searches for another friendly face and finds Shawn Burr, who’d been friendlier than some of the other guys during introductions earlier.

He taps Shawn on the shoulder, showing his bare hands. “Shawn, I need love.”

Shawn only laughs, eyes on his stick as he tapes the butt end. “Yeah, Sergei. We all need love.”

“No. Love. Love! I need love!” Sergei points at his hand, willing Shawn to understand the way Steve does, effortlessly. Steve would understand. Shawn doesn’t though, and it takes some more hand jabbing and Sergei shouting “Love!” at him for him to finally get it.

When he does, he eyes light up, and he drops his stick. “Oh shit, you need gloves! Right, sorry Feds. I’ll go find Mark.”

And he walks away, laughing and muttering _love_ under his breath. Sergei sighs to himself.

Mark the equipment manager is obviously overwhelmed with preparing for the season, but he takes the time to ask Sergei what kind of equipment he’d like, which Sergei appreciates. It is a kindness that he is not used to, not in Moscow where Sergei was a soldier, and the Red Army staff were his superior officers.

He doesn’t need to test out sticks though. He only says, “I want be like Stevie.”

And so Sergei is given the same kind of stick and gloves that Steve uses, that Sergei has been practicing with this summer. He smiles, and when Mark asks him if he’s thought about what number he wants, Sergei thinks about the 18 he wore in Moscow, and he chooses—

 

Steve is standing in front of Sergei’s stall when Sergei walks into the room on opening night. He is already fully dressed, holding a roll of tape, every inch the captain in his familiar #19 jersey. Sergei follows his eyes.

And there, hanging in the stall, is his own jersey, brand new: FEDOROV in red and white, in the colors of Red Army, but so so different.

“Bold choice,” Steve says.

Sergei looks at him.

“No one wears a number that high, not in the NHL. It’s not fashionable, except for Wayne,” Steve explains. “But I’m sure you’ll make something of number 91.”

 

* * *

 

“I used to wear 91 when I played for Kranaya Armiya. You were my favorite player when I was growing up.”

Sergei smiles, still a little lost in the memory. “It’s a good number, isn’t it? Very special to me, especially in Detroit. My time there was incredible. The team, the Cups, the coaches, it was like Soviet hockey. All working together as one unit.

“But you know, those early seasons, they were hard. You understand that. In Detroit, they hadn’t won in close to 40 years, and the fans were hungry for a championship. The owners—Mike Ilitch would come into the dressing room in those early years, and he pushed us and pushed us to be better, to win more, to make the playoffs and go further every year. The team changed a lot. And they drafted more Russians.”

“Vladimir Konstantinov. Slava Kozlov,” Nikita recites dutifully.

“Just the three of us, in those early years. Vladdie they brought over the season after me, and Kozzie the year after that. It was good.”

That was the beginning of the Russian Five. Sergei, Vladdie, and Kozzie, the first three pieces of what would become legend, and they hadn’t known it at the time. At the time, there was just hockey, and the boys, and the joy and sorrow of each new season.

“It is nice to have another Russian on the same team as you. Feels like home.”

Nikita listens with wide but serious eyes.

“Stevie understands that. In Tampa, you will have other Russians, yes?”

“Namestnikov and Nesterov,” Nikita says. “Oh, and Vasilevskiy. They drafted Vasy this year.”

“Namestnikov. Kozzie’s nephew.” Sergei almost laughs. It seems like Steve really is trying to rebuild the Five. “You’ll like it then, in Tampa Bay. Have a few countrymen around so you don’t forget your roots.”

 

People think the Soviets stuck together. They did.

Vladdie used to drive Sergei home, back when Vladdie was still around to do the driving, and they would talk easily in Russian about hockey or whatever little inconvenience was on their minds. Sometimes, Vladdie would sing, usually dirty songs, always loud, and then he would laugh while Sergei rolled his eyes in the passenger seat.

“Don’t be a prude, Seryozha. Not my fault you can’t get laid,” Vladdie would say.

And Sergei would stare out the window and say, a little put out, “I _can_ get laid. I just don’t want to.”

“No, not American girls anyway. You like something a little more Canadian, yes? Plays hockey, wears a C on his chest? Calls you _‘Sergei’_ —” He would always say Sergei’s name in the Western way, when imitating Steve, “—in the quiet voice, and then you fall over on the ice like this morning in practice—”

“That is because Seryozha doesn’t know how to lace his skates,” Kozzie would interject from the backseat.

See, this is shit that only other Russians could pull with Sergei. Only other Russians would dare.

It was good, to have people like Vladdie and Kozzie around.

 

“It was fun. Just the three young guys, you know? And then the Wings traded for Slava Fetisov and Igor Larionov in ‘95, and they were so much older and more experienced, and they became like our fathers.”

Nikita has that look on his face that Sergei is used to now, that young and awed look that young players have whenever they look at Sergei, or whenever the Russian Five are brought up. It gives Sergei goosebumps, to be honest.

“And then you were amazing,” Nikita says.

“Yes. We were. We played good hockey, great hockey, like Soviet style. And we had amazing seasons. But you have to understand that playing in the NHL—There are many good teams and many good players. The best in the world. And winning the Cup is the hardest thing I ever did. Even with the Five, and with a team as talented as we were, we didn’t win the Cup easily. It took years of failed playoff runs, and people expected us to win every year, and we didn’t. The NHL playoffs are the hardest hockey I ever played.”

They don’t really talk about that, not in Russia. The failure, the heartbreak, the loss and disappointment—that isn’t part of the story of the Russian Five. In a story of legends, who remembers the bitter beginning?

Sergei continues. “There were people who thought that we didn’t belong with the Red Wings, or in the NHL. People who said that Russians are soft, and that Detroit would never win a Cup with so many of us on the team. Some of them were our own teammates.”

He looks at Nikita, a little sad. “It was like that for me. And it is different now, but still there are people who will say that about you. That you are soft, and lazy, and that you don’t work hard enough. That you will never win.”

Nikita drops his eyes. His face has gone back to serious, almost sullen, and Sergei guesses that he has already heard some of this, probably around the draft. A player with as much raw skill as Nikita Kucherov does not drop to the second round of the draft if he is Canadian. But people in North America still worry about the Russian factor.

“But not Steve,” Sergei reminds him. “Never Steve. To Stevie, if you can play, then you belong.”

 

* * *

 

_1995_

Getting swept by the Devils in the Final hurts. They made it that far, right? They led the league in points after the lockout, and they should have done it. They would have. They didn’t.

The media is never easy to face after yet another failed playoff run, the fifth time since Sergei’s arrival that the Wings have played beautiful hockey in the regular season and fallen terribly, disappointingly short in the postseason. Sergei is tired of hearing that they are a good team that chokes and underperforms when it matters most. He knows. They all know.

He also knows that the media calls him Mr. Flashy, that the media calls him soft, that the media says he isn’t tough enough or doesn’t care enough. It hurts to hear this, but he never addresses it. That is just not the Russian way.

It maybe hurts more after this loss than any other though, because everything that the media says is true. They _were_ the heavy favorites heading into the Final. Who even gave the Devils a chance? Many people thought the series would be over in four games, but now the wrong team is lifting the Cup.

Steve finds him on the team charter, Sergei quietly flipping through a magazine in his corner. No one is really up for card games or conversation, none more than Sergei.

“Beer?” Steve asks, offering him a Molson.

Sergei is not in the mood for shitty Canadian beer. He wants vodka, ice cold and in a proper shot glass, drunk they way they do in Moscow. He could toast the Cup in the Devils’ dressing room.

“Thank you,” he says instead, and takes the shitty Canadian beer.

Steve takes the seat next to him, sighing a little as he twists the top off his own bottle. He looks tired and kind of awful, especially with the black eye he’d gotten in Game 3, from a high stick.

“Heard you got some tough questions,” he says.

Sergei stays silent. The magazine is very boring, so he flips a page.

“They shouldn’t have asked. The bit about your willingness to play through injury—That was inappropriate. I should’ve said something.”

“Don’t need you to,” Sergei says shortly.

“They’re not—Sergei, they’re not in the room with us. They don’t understand how hard you work and how much you care. And people still believe in the enigmatic Russian. You don’t give much of your thoughts away.”

He’s right; Sergei knows that he holds the cards close to his chest. And he knows that the criticism is louder for it.

He shrugs. “Media always asking questions. Not always can have answers.”

“Well, you let me know if anyone’s giving you a hard time, okay? _Anyone_. Not just the media.”

“And who we let know if they giving _you_ hard time?”

Steve stops drinking his beer, taking his time swallowing and lowering the bottle. He stares at the label, and then he looks up at Sergei, eyes razor-sharp. “What do you mean?”

“They always asking you about being good leader, if Steve Yzerman is strong enough to lead Red Wings. If you have good character. If you are the right captain. Stupid questions.” Sergei wants to touch Steve, to reach across the seat and smooth Steve’s hair out of his face. His fingers twitch, and he glares at his own bottle.

“I didn’t know you were listening,” Steve says softly.

What is Sergei supposed to say? He doesn’t speak much, but he is always listening. Especially when Stevie is involved.

“My English not so bad, Stepka.” He manages to crack a smile, and Steve smiles back.

 

 

_1996_

They have the best season in franchise history the next year. 131 points, top of the league. The best team in hockey.

It should be their year. And again, it isn’t.

(Colorado, Sergei thinks, is its own brand of invincible. In Detroit, they have Yzerman and Lidstrom and Shanahan and the Russian Five. And Colorado? They have Sakic and Forsberg and Lemieux and Roy. Two titans, and only one comes out on top.)

 

It’s not all bad, though. They come back the year after, still strong, still contenders. They’re on track to make the playoffs in December.

Sergei has a slow start to the season, but he has a career night against the Capitals the day after Christmas, a crazy back-and-forth game that ends with a score of 5-4 in overtime. Sergei scores all five for Detroit.

Afterward, the team goes out to a bar for a real night of drinking, and Shanny lines up five shots in front of Sergei because “Five shots for five goals, Feds! Pound ‘em!”

By now, Sergei is used to the North American way of drinking, where the aim seems to be to get drunk as fast as possible. The Americans don’t understand the real way to drink vodka. But he throws them back, one after the other, waiting only a few minutes between each.

After the fourth, he’s feeling warm and a little fuzzy around the edges, and he strips his shirt off and drapes it over Shanny’s shoulder. Shanny snaps it at Sergei’s ass, grinning.

One more shot, for that fifth goal in overtime—that fifth, unbelievable goal; Sergei looks up, catching Steve’s eye, and knocks it back.

And then, somehow, some time later, Sergei is laughing and climbing on the table and listening to Vladdie bullshit Steve about doing Soviet-style body shots off of Sergei’s chest. There isn’t such a thing as Soviet-style body shots. At least, none that involve licking salt off Sergei’s nipple, but Steve goes along with it, watching carefully as Vladdie shows him how to do it: prep, salt, shot, and then lime. Oh, and a smacking kiss thrown in at the end. Sergei is sure that Vladdie added that last bit just for their captain.

Steve takes his time doing his shot next, not rushing like Vladdie did. He’s careful straddling Sergei’s hips and dragging his tongue over Sergei’s nipple—the other one—and shaking the salt onto the wet skin. He’s intensely focused as he licks the salt off, downs the shot, and bites the lime out of Sergei’s mouth.

For his part, Sergei lays back with the lime in his mouth and thinks about Mother Russia and not at all about how hard his dick is.

But he feels bold (and maybe tipsy) enough to catch Steve’s wrist when Steve sits up, bold enough to say, “Didn’t finish your shot.”

And then for the briefest moment, Steve’s mouth is on his, Steve’s fingers in Sergei’s hair, and there’s the feeling of day-old stubble and the taste of tequila mixed with citrus in Sergei’s mouth. Steve pulls away too fast, breathing just a bit too hard, and Sergei lets him go.

He wants to chase after Steve, to catch his mouth again, but he only pats Steve’s hip and asks, “More shots?”

“Yeah, uh huh,” Steve says, and backs away until he bumps into Nicky, who throws an arm around him. So, that is it.

After that, the team gathers to do actual Russian-style shots, which involves much less nipple licking and much more toasting. There are several toasts to Sergei’s five goals. Igor leads off with toasts to hockey, to health, and to the Detroit Red Wings.

Sergei’s single toast is: “To Caps goalie, _pokoysya s mirom!_ ”

The table repeats it, the non-Russians cheerfully butchering the words. The sentiment of “ _rest in peace_ ” is felt though.

Shanny bangs his hand on the table and drunkenly toasts Sergei’s abs, “Fucking ripped, man, best eight-pack I’ve ever seen,” and Steve makes a strangled, half-giggling sort of noise into his empty glass.

“Okay, captain’s drunk,” Nicky says, and Kozzie half-heartedly mumbles something about Canadians holding their liquor.

But Vladdie is merciless. “No, no. One more, Stevie. To—To—Beautiful women—”

“We did that one already,” Ozzie says.

“We toast beautiful women again.”

Sergei waits until everyone else has downed their shot, and then he lifts his little glass and tips it in Steve’s direction. “To best captain in the league,” he says, just for Steve’s ears.

Steve laughs and ducks his head, lashes dark against his cheeks, but Sergei still sees the smile he’s hiding, and he lets it warm him and mix with the burn of the vodka sliding down his throat. He imagines that he can still taste the limes.

 

* * *

 

“Oh,” Nikita breaks in.

Sergei stops speaking.

There is red creeping up Nikita’s neck, under the wispy beard that he is trying to grow, and red spreading over his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. He is staring very hard at the picture hanging on Sergei’s wall, the one of him holding the Cup with the other members of the Five after their 1997 championship.

“It’s just—I always thought—People said that you and Pavel Bure. Or Alex Mogilny.”

Which is fair. Sergei saw a lot of Pavel’s dick back in Moscow, before he defected. And Alex’s. He and Pavel and Alex were supposed to be the next KLM line to dominate international and Russian hockey. It was natural that they stuck together.

It’s funny though. Throughout his career, everyone just sort of assumed that Sergei must have had something with one of the Russians. Maybe one of the other members of the Five—Vladdie or Kozzie, the two guys his age—or with one of the other players Sergei knew from the national team. Alex or Pavel, like Nikita said, the obvious choices.

And Steve—Well, there was always Shanny, who never left Steve’s side, and people assumed—

It just made sense.

Sergei and Steve don’t really make sense.

Sergei knows that he doesn’t give away his thoughts often. The boys in Detroit used to say that he was the most dangerous poker player they’d ever met. And maybe Steve Yzerman is the biggest secret that Sergei never let on.

It’s funny though. Something Sergei learned is that people never think outside of the obvious.

“Everyone said that you and Mogilny…” Nikita says, a little helplessly, because Sergei still hasn’t said anything.

“Alex is my good friend,” Sergei finally says. There is a picture of Alex on Sergei’s desk, Alex and Pavel and Sergei back in Moscow, before their lives really began. “We are very close—He asked me to go to America with him, when he was defecting—but.” He shrugs. There’s really nothing more he can say without making it more awkward.

“Oh,” Nikita says again. He is still blushing. “Sorry.”

“Alex is very special to me,” Sergei tells him. “We developed a bond when we played together for CSKA, before the NHL. But the struggle to win a Stanley Cup together—that’s a bond that is maybe stronger than most.”

 

* * *

 

_1997_

The ribs are broken, Sergei knows. He can feel it, agonizing pain. It hurts to breathe.

The doctors are hovering over him, talking to him, telling him about how they’ve prepared an injection that will numb the injury enough for him to return to the ice. Sergei doesn’t understand how he can. He can’t breathe.

He doesn’t have the breath to tell them that he’s not going back, so he just lies on the table and lets them talk over him, and he thinks about the 1-0 lead that the Avalanche have in Game 3, and he thinks about last year and losing to the Avalanche again.

Seven years of making the playoffs, and no Cups.

And then Steve is in the doorway of the room, helmet on, gloves on, everything still on, in between shifts, and Sergei closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see him. He can’t block his ears though, and he can’t stop himself from hearing Stevie’s voice.

“C’mon, Sergei. We need you!”

“I can’t breathe,” he whispers, with the last of his breath.

His lungs are starved for air. He holds out for as long as he can, keeping his ribs still, and then he takes as shallow a breath as he dares, trying not to move his chest. The pain is excruciating.

“Sergei, please—”

“I can’t—”

Steve’s hand touches his now, clenching tight around Sergei’s fingers. He’s taken his glove off, and his palm is sweaty. Sergei opens his eyes.

“Please,” Steve says, Steve _begs_ , more gentle than Sergei could ask for when they’re down by one and there’s a titan on the other side of the ice. “We need you. You’re the best we’ve got. We need you.”

But Sergei is stubborn, and he _hurts_. The doctors are coming with the needle now.

“Please,” Steve says again, a plea for Sergei to get back on the ice and do his fucking job, score a goal, lead the Wings to victory like he’s been doing for the last two and a half rounds of the playoffs, the Wings’ best player, and Sergei swallows.

He wants to say Steve’s name but he doesn’t have the breath, and then Steve’s fingers are gone, and he’s backing away, saying, “I gotta get back out there, the boys need me, I shouldn’t have left the bench. But you—You should come back, Sergei.”

He doesn’t stay long enough to watch the doctors administer the shot.

Within a few minutes, the pain dulls and then disappears, and Sergei can sit up and breathe normally. He takes his jersey off and begins to strip out of his equipment.

“You’re not getting back on the ice?” one of the doctors asks, surprised.

Sergei shakes his head. He is done.

Intermission comes quickly. With it comes Vladdie, who storms into the trainer’s room and tears into him, and it’s one of the few times that Sergei has heard him yell. But Vladdie is yelling and saying a lot of awfully sharp things in Russian, and then he stomps out of the trainer’s room and back into the dressing room.

Sergei is back on the ice for the third period. Steve grins when he sees him, and he grins harder when Sergei assists on both of the goals to give them the 2-1 win over Colorado.

 

“I wasn’t lying, you know. We really do need you.”

Steve is too Canadian to ask Sergei what Vladdie was shouting about during second intermission. Too polite to ask about something that he feels is between the Russians, even though he must be curious about what Vladdie said to change Sergei’s mind.

“I’m hurt,” Sergei tells him. “Broken ribs here.” He points to the injured ribs, points to the bruises forming around the ice pack.

Steve blinks and looks away, holding his own post-game ice pack to his ankle, icing it to minimize the limp.

“We’re all a little banged up during the playoffs.” He takes a few breaths and then adds, quickly, “There’s a whisper campaign among some of the boys who say that you’re not—” Steve breaks off, like he can’t finish the sentence. He looks ashamed.

“Not tough? You Canadians always talking about how tough you are. Different than Russian toughness.”

“It’s leaked to the press. I don’t know who started the whisper campaign, but I’ll talk to them—”

“No,” Sergei says. He is used to people talking about him, whispering things. It hurts that sometimes it’s his own teammates, but he’s used to that too. It’s been seven years since he defected, and sometimes the room is just as alien as it was when he first arrived. “They think I’m not tough.”

“Whatever their thoughts, in this league we stick up for each other.”

“But maybe you don’t understand why I don’t play.”

Steve is quiet for a moment, before he sighs and puts down the ice pack, rolling down his pant leg. “I don’t. It’s not that I don’t think you’re tough, but you don’t come back. You get hurt and you don’t play through the pain like the rest of us.”

“How I can do that, Stevie? I’m best, you know that. But when I’m hurt, I’m not best. I’m hurt, I play, then I hurt the team. I make bad decisions, or I can’t skate because my ankle broken, or I can’t make pass because my hand hurt and I can’t bend my fingers. I hurt the team. But if Scotty puts someone else in, maybe he can skate or make pass or score a goal. Maybe he wins the game for us. How I can tell Scotty ‘Put me in coach’ and know that I’m hurt and I only play like 80 percent of Sergei Fedorov?”

He blows out a breath, glad that with the injection, he can do that without pain. This is more than he’s said on the topic, ever, though he’s been aware of the whispers for years. Sergei doesn’t talk about his motivations for doing anything. He just never talks.

The silence this time is longer. Sergei swaps his ice pack for Steve’s discarded one, wincing.

“You know that we’d rather have you, right?” Steve asks. “You really are the best player on the team. Without you, we don’t get this far in the playoffs. We don’t beat Colorado this series. And even if you’re hurt—80 percent of Sergei Fedorov is still 100 fucking percent better than anyone else in the league.”

Sergei drops his eyes, pretending to tend to his ribs. He’s pretty glad for his poker face.

“Except Wayne,” he says.

Steve snorts. “Wayne isn’t in the playoffs anymore. And he’s—He’s Wayne. You’re better than everyone _else_ in the league though.”

Sergei has been hearing that for years now, but it means something more, to hear it from Stevie. It means something to hear the faith that Steve has in him, to get it done.

“So you’ll play in Game 4?”

“I think so. I need shot before the game, for the pain, but I’ll play.”

“And in Game 5 and Game 6 and Game 7, if we need you?”

“Yeah, okay.” Because it’s Steve asking, and the Wings asking. Maybe that’s the same thing.

The relieved smile on Steve’s face lights him up, and Sergei looks at him, _really_ looks at him: at the bruises and the chipped tooth and the hint of laugh lines starting to form at the corners of Steve’s eyes and mouth. And he thinks about the fact that Steve has waited 13 years for his Cup, and his name still isn’t on it yet.

It’s easy, then, for Sergei to know that he will suit up for every game for the rest of the playoffs, broken ribs be damned. He’ll do it: for Sergei Fedorov, for the Detroit Red Wings, and for Steve Yzerman.

 

So, the story. Everyone knows the story. They beat the Avalanche in the Western Conference Finals, and Sergei scores the game winner in Game 6 to take them to the Stanley Cup Final for the second time in three years.

And then they sweep the Flyers to bring Hockeytown their first Cup in 42 years. Everyone knows this story.

Everyone knows the next part, too.

 

The celebrations last all week, from sunup to sundown, and often well into the night. They carry the Cup around the city, and everywhere they go, red carpets are rolled out for them, their fans showing up by the thousands. The parade on the third day is incredible. Sergei has never felt so beloved.

On the sixth day, they all get together for a day at the golf club, one last party before they part ways for the summer. Igor is missing, with his children probably, but everyone else is there, taking turns carting the Cup around the golf course. Vladdie will not stop singing.

“Will you stop?” Sergei asks, laughing, because Vladdie is a surprisingly good singer, but he only sings one song.

“No, no. Because we are the champions!” Vladdie says, and then he launches into another chorus of “We Are the Champions.”

Sergei tees up, takes a good whack, and bounces the ball off Vladdie’s ass.

In the clubhouse, Steve is sitting with one arm around Shanny and one around the Cup, his dinner half-eaten in front of him. Sergei squeezes in on the other side of Shanny and helps himself to one of Steve’s untouched wings. As he eats, he half-listens to Shanny ramble about whoever he picked up last night after the party at Ozzie’s. Or maybe Ozzie’s was the night before, and last night was Scotty? The parties are all starting to blur together.

“—and then when we got to the bedroom, my zipper got _stuck_ and you know how embarrassing that is? I was dying, and—Stevie?”

Sergei is licking the sauce off his fingers, but he looks up in time to see Steve staring at him, a stunned fish kind of look on his face. Maybe he is drunk. Drunk Stevie is always fun. Sergei smiles at him and licks his lips, wiping his fingers on a napkin.

“Uh,” Steve says.

Story interrupted, Shanny looks back and forth between them, his head turning left and right before he says loudly, “Hey Feds, did you see Vladdie and Slava by any chance? I need them to sign these jerseys we’re giving away for auction. Just missing those two.”

“Vladdie outside, I think. Don’t know where Slava is.”

“Could you look for them and get them to sign these? I gotta talk to Stevie about something real fast.”

“I can look—” Steve starts, but Shanny yanks him back down.

“Sergei’s got it, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, I got it,” Sergei says, very agreeable as he gathers up the signed jerseys that Shanny has passed to him. He is usually very agreeable when there is food and vodka and a championship with his name on it.

It takes him a few rounds of the golf club to find Vladdie and Slava, but he eventually gets a tip from Kozzie that Vladdie is out front. And he is indeed there, climbing into a limo with Slava and their massage therapist already seated inside.

“Are you leaving already?” Sergei has to shout to be heard.

“Slava is tired! He wants to go home.” But when Sergei attempts to slide into the limo with them, Vladdie shoves him out. “No more room in this one for you, Seryozha! Get the next one with Stevie. And kiss him tonight, yes? You’ve won a Cup already, so kiss the damn man.”

“Vova—” Sergei starts, but Vladdie closes the limo door and waves at him from behind the darkened glass, not at all regretful. Behind him, Slava mouths _‘Kiss!’_ and gives Sergei a big thumbs up.

Sergei has to bend over and knock on the window until Vladdie rolls it down, and then he pushes the jerseys through the opening. “Shanny needs you to sign these! They’re for the charity auction next week.”

Vladdie and Slava sign. The pen is thrown at Sergei, the jerseys shoved back into his arms, and as the window is rolled back up, he hears Vladdie add, “And don’t forget the kiss, Seryozha!”

And then the limo peels out, and Sergei blinks after it for a moment before heading back to the clubhouse.

When he walks in, Shanny gets up immediately and gathers the signed jerseys, nudging Sergei into his empty seat. “I’m gonna go get these to Scotty. You and Stevie have fun in your little corner.” He walks away, but not before winking at them first.

Steve had lowered his arm when Shanny got up, but he puts it around Sergei now, palm hot against Sergei’s shoulder. Suddenly, Sergei is very warm, and he grabs a beer to have something in his hands. It is good that he won’t be driving tonight.

“Slava and Vladdie leave?” Steve’s voice comes low and a little intimate. He is looking at Sergei with his dark eyes.

“Yes, too tired,” Sergei says. He swallows, thinks about what he will say next. “Think I will go home too.”

He gets up, looks back at Steve and takes his time checking his pockets for his things. He hopes the invitation is clear.

It must be. Steve gets up too, dropping his arm from around the Cup and patting his own pockets for his wallet and keys. He moves quickly and a little clumsily. “Mind if we share a limo? I should be heading out too. Getting a little too crowded in here.” He raises his voice, turning away for a second. “Hey! Hey Brendan! Watch the Cup, eh? I’m heading out with Sergei; I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Sergei can’t see Shanny from where he is standing, but whatever his response is, it makes Steve roll his eyes.

They get into an empty limo, just the two of them, though they pretend to wait for a few minutes in case anyone wants to join them. No one does though, and Sergei is relieved when he can tap on the glass for the driver to leave.

The first couple of minutes on the road are quiet. Steve pours himself another drink from the minibar and offers one to Sergei, who takes it gratefully. He is nervous, and the vodka is not chilled the way he likes it, but it does settle his nerves a little. The glass clinks loudly when he sets it down, empty.

He meets Steve’s eyes, and Steve smiles.

You see, there are moments in a hockey player’s life that seem to come to a standstill. Moments that precede great and terrible things. Sergei remembers them: 10 years old and hearing about that crazy “Miracle on Ice” game that shook the nation…16 years old and playing for Red Army for the first time, the pride, the patriotism, the Motherland…20 years old in Portland for the Goodwill Games and stepping off the ice, slipping into the crowd and onto a plane bound for Detroit, for a summer of freedom, a life of freedom…

And just a couple days ago, 27 years old with a one-goal lead in the dying seconds of Game 4, the Flyers swarming in their zone, and Vladdie falling on the puck to protect it. That was another moment that the world stood still.

And now, the Cup back at the golf club with a teammate, finally theirs, and Steve turns his head and smiles at Sergei, tired from the partying all week, but happy, so happy…

Sergei thinks that this, maybe, will be one of those moments that will stretch out forever in his memory.

Steve takes his hand off the seat next to him and puts it on Sergei’s knee, and the way he is looking at Sergei—Sergei thinks that Steve will slide closer on the long seat of the limo, maybe put his arm back around him and close the distance between them, and this time it won’t taste like tequila and limes clenched between Sergei’s teeth. This time, it’ll taste like victory.

His lips part, and Steve leans in, closing the gap between them, eyes on Sergei, hand on his knee, and—

Sergei’s phone rings.

He finds it behind him on the seat, and as he accepts the call, he shoots a look at Steve, at where Steve is still touching him, and he is thinking about that as he answers.

And then nothing is the same ever again.

 

* * *

 

“The limo accident,” Nikita says softly.

Years later, Sergei doesn’t remember what they were talking about before that, him and Steve. He doesn’t remember what he ate for dinner that night at the golf club, or what he drank, or who had the Cup when he left. What he remembers is Steve’s eyes on his, dark, and Steve’s hand on his knee, and the phone pressed to his ear, with the officer’s cold voice on the other end.

Sergei remembers how his hand felt weightless as he passed his phone to Steve, and he remembers Steve’s hand gone suddenly from his knee, and missing the heat of it, feeling like he was floating without it.

He remembers hearing Steve asking, “Is Vladdie going to make it?” and he remembers Vladdie that day, singing “We Are the Champions” as he drove the golf cart around the green…

He remembers Steve putting his hand back on Sergei’s knee, and Steve telling their driver the address of the hospital.

Sergei closes his eyes.

“I won’t talk about it,” he says, and his voice comes out rough. Over a decade later and he still can’t think about it without breaking down. “I do not like to talk about it. But yes. That was the end of the celebration, in the summer of ‘97.”

That was when the dream began to fall apart.

 

* * *

 

_1998_

Steve isn’t _angry_ , is the thing. Or if he is, he doesn’t show it. People say that Steve Yzerman’s control is legendary, his composure unbreakable. He’s predictable in that way.

It has become habit to dodge him at the rink. This is made easier by the fact that Sergei doesn’t practice with the team, not without a contract, and not when he might leave Detroit at any moment, if another team came along with a better offer.

It would make sense if Steve is angry. Sergei knows that the team must be, as the contract dispute drags on. And then it is November, December, January, February, more than half the season gone without him, and Sergei has not played for the Detroit Red Wings since lifting the Cup last June.

Steve is quiet about it. He doesn’t talk to the media about Sergei’s contract, and he doesn’t make any veiled jabs at Sergei or indirectly ask Sergei to sign through a pretty soundbite, like some of the others. Steve only shrugs and says, “Sure it would be nice to have Sergei, but it is what it is.”

He would be a good GM one day, Sergei thinks.

But then.

Sergei really does entertain the idea of moving to Carolina. The Hurricanes are not a good team, but they have money, and they practically throw it at him in the offer sheet. It is more than Detroit has been offering this whole time. A $14 million signing bonus payable all at once if his team makes the Conference Finals? That amount is staggering.

It’s a lot. It’s too much. Sergei signs the offer sheet.

That gets Steve’s attention, at least.

In hindsight, Sergei thinks that Steve had thought there really was nothing to worry about. That Sergei’s loyalty was sound, that he could not be bought, that he would without question return to the Wings. Sergei almost wishes that were true.

Steve Yzerman’s control is legendary, until he closes the door behind him, and it is just the two of them. And then he lets it slip.

“You signed the offer sheet?” He is not yelling, but there is ice in his voice.

Sergei spreads his hands, more defensive than he likes. “Did you see contract? You know I’m not liking the contract Mike Ilitch offers me, and offer sheet has better deal. My agent agree.”

“So it’s the money. You’d really rather have the money than to win another Cup with us.”

“What I am supposed to do, Steve? Say no? Carolina, they come to me and they say they’ll give me this much million dollars, and then they offer me big bonus—How I am supposed to say no?”

“By remembering who the hell got you out of Russia when you wanted out of the Red Army!”

“That was eight years ago. I played for Detroit eight years, good hockey. I brought Cup here.”

A muscle twitches in Steve’s jaw, and he looks away. “You shouldn’t have signed that offer sheet. This team—It’s not about the money.”

That is easy for Steve to say, when Steve grew up in Canada, a world apart. Steve never had to live like Sergei did in the Soviet Union, in one of those small apartments on the fifth floor of a complex, dreaming of serving his country and making a little money on the side; Steve’s parents never had to pinch and save for two years just to buy him new skates and a stick.

Steve never had to worry about his parents in Murmansk, the early years when Sergei was in the NHL and unsure if anything would happen to his family because of his defection, and even the later years, when _Sergei_ is the reason they aren’t struggling in poverty anymore.

So yeah, it _is_ about the money.

In North America, wanting the money makes you a greedy son of a bitch. In Russia, wanting it just makes you practical.

“Contract matters to me. Maybe not to you, but it matters to me.” After all, that’s part of the reason Sergei came to America, right? For freedom, for fame, and for fortune.

“I just didn’t think you would want to leave,” Steve says. He looks tired now, and Sergei understands. The short summer, the grind of the season, it’s all catching up. “We’re so close, Sergei. We won it last year, and we can win it again— _We believe!_ We really do believe. We’re gonna do it for Vladdie. Why would you leave that?”

When Steve puts it like that, there really is no satisfactory answer.

“It's Vladdie, isn't it?”

Sergei turns away, but he’s sure that Steve already saw the tears welling up in his eyes. It is too hard, the wound too raw. The dressing room has a gaping hole in it without Vladdie on their blue line, with Vladdie never to play hockey again, and can you blame Sergei for wanting a fresh start? The money doesn’t hurt.

“It’s Vladdie, isn’t it, Sergei? I know you and him are close, and with him not on the ice with us, that’s gotta be painful. But running away isn’t gonna solve anything. You gotta—You _have_ to win for Vladdie. And you can’t do that in Carolina.”

Steve reaches up to put his hands on either side of Sergei’s face, pinning him with his stare.

“When Mike Ilitch matches the Carolina offer sheet, sign it,” Steve says.

It’s the first time he’s begged Sergei for anything since the playoffs last year.

They breathe in silence for a few beats, at a stalemate. This close, Sergei can see the signs of age on Steve’s face, the exhaustion and the weight of the team that he has been carrying for 15 years. They’re so much older now. But he feels that familiar ache in him, the secret hope that Steve will kiss him, a quiet longing that he’s become accustomed to since arriving in America. It reminds him too much of that night in the limo though, Steve’s hand on his knee, his laughing eyes, and then that awful phone call. No kisses, not then, not ever.

It’s another reason that he had really thought about Carolina. Unspoken, but there.

 _Please sign_ , Steve had said. Sergei doesn’t say anything.

 

In the end, he signs. It takes less than a day for the Wings to match the Hurricanes’ offer, though it must have hurt to match. A $38 million contract, $14 million of which is a bonus that must be paid immediately if the Wings make the Conference Finals.

The rest of the team welcomes Sergei back rather cheerfully. It helps to have a star back.

But things are different. Nicky says something, low and warning, about the Ilitches never forgetting a wrong. And a few guys in the room are extra quiet around Sergei, though Sergei can guess why—He’d read those quotes about _Once a defector, always a defector_ , and _We all know what Sergei Fedorov thinks about loyalty_. Some quotes had come from the writers, but some had come from this room.

Scotty strips Sergei of his A. Sergei doesn’t say anything about it. As always, he simply swallows that bitter pill, and he gets to work.

 

And they win the Cup again.

It seems miraculous, impossible, beautiful. But they do it, for Vladdie.

Steve doesn’t skate the captain’s lap with the Cup like he did last year. When it is handed to him by Gary Bettman, he only lifts it for the crowd to see, for the cameras, and then he skates over to where Vladdie is on the ice in his wheelchair, and he sets it gently on Vladdie’s lap. They are in the Capitals’ arena, but it feels like the whole world is cheering for them.

Watching Steve hold the Cup steady as Slava and Igor push Vladdie for a lap around the ice, the rest of the team following, Sergei remembers vividly why he fell in love with this man.

So, there it is. A moment for the history books.

(Another moment for the history books:

Sergei makes $28 million that year, almost more than the whole rest of the team combined. It is the elephant in the room that no one talks about, but everyone feels it, a moment of discomfort.

Much easier to talk about the Cup.)

 

 

_2003_

And then another season going by—

And then another postseason and another set of awards in Vegas—

And then another Cup, their third Cup—

 

Five years go by so fast. As he gets older, Sergei comes to realize that each year, each season, passes in the blink of an eye. He is 20 years old and defecting from Moscow, 27 years old and winning his first Cup, 28 years old and signing his mammoth new contract. 33 years old and leaving Detroit.

Red Wings fans might never understand, Sergei knows. It is a betrayal, and hockey fans do not tolerate traitors. The Ilitches do not tolerate traitors. Much like Red Army, he supposes.

Steve doesn’t beg him to stay, but he talks to Sergei a lot in the weeks leading up to free agency. The courting calls are appreciated, though Sergei is unsure how much is done as a favor to Mike Ilitch and how much is Steve’s own initiative.

“We could still make another run,” Steve says, and Sergei presses his lips together and looks out the window, at the heavy evening traffic passing below the window of his nice Moscow apartment.

“We still have the pieces,” Steve says, quieter.

The memory of their third Cup last year is on both their minds. They’d done it, hadn’t they? They’d stumbled after ‘98, after Vladdie had been forced to retire, after Slava hung up the skates, after Kozzie was traded to Buffalo. Igor had been traded but had returned to them and scored that beauty in triple overtime during the Final last year. Detroit does have the pieces.

“We’re family, Sergei.”

“Sometimes need a break from family, you know? I’m old now, Stevie. I need fresh start. You don’t understand.”

“Jesus Christ, you think I don’t understand how you’re feeling? Every player thinks about it. The grass isn’t always greener anywhere else though. You think I don’t understand what you’re going through?” Steve asks, but how can he? He is Steve Yzerman, the captain. The city of Detroit kneels at his feet.

It is—stupid, maybe. In Red Army, they teach you to be one in a collective. Sergei has always known that he is only one piece of the puzzle, one part of his unit. Sometimes, he wonders if that is all he will ever be.

Sometimes, he is haunted by the thoughts of whether he will ever be Sergei Fedorov, without the Red Wings…without Steve Yzerman.

Sometimes, more and more often now, he thinks about living in Steve’s shadow his whole career. If he stays in Detroit, he knows he’ll never escape Steve.

“Is my choice, Stevie.”

“I know. I just hope you’re thinking about it the way I am. Your heart’s in Detroit; I know it is.”

He’s not wrong. Sergei’s heart has been in Detroit since 1990, has played 19 seasons and captained 16 of them and is an unrestricted free agent this summer—but everyone knows he’ll stay, given the chance. And he’s asking Sergei to stay.

“I’ll think about it,” Sergei says.

They both know though, don’t they? Steve can probably hear it in the way he answers.

Sergei turns away from the window, and on the other end of the phone, he hears Steve’s soft little sigh.

It’s not that Sergei loves Steve or Detroit any less, but he needs to get out. He needs something new, something fresh, something that doesn’t hurt the way Steve and Detroit have started to hurt in those later years. So many good memories, but so much that hurts, too.

So when Anaheim offers him a contract—less money than Detroit is offering, and less term—Sergei signs. He thinks about it, about the 13 years in Detroit and what it’ll mean leaving, and then he signs with Anaheim.

A few weeks later, Steve signs another contract with the Red Wings.

 

Sergei’s return to Detroit as a Mighty Duck is bittersweet. The Joe Louis Arena is so loud, so alive, and the ice and rafters and the stands—It feels painfully like home. Except for the booing every time that Sergei touches the puck. That part doesn’t feel so welcoming.

But it’s life. The end of that chapter of Sergei’s life.

He never returns to Detroit as a Red Wing.

 

* * *

 

_2012_

“I stayed with Anaheim for a few years, and then went to Columbus, and later Washington. Played with Ovechkin for a little while. That was fun. And then I spent some years with Metallurg so I could play with my brother Fedor, and last year I retired and now I’m here.”

He spreads his hands for a second before dropping them.

Nikita looks like he isn’t sure where to look.

“More than the history books tell you, yes?”

“A lot more. I didn’t know—About Steve Yzerman—”

No, he wouldn’t. That isn’t part of the story of the Russian Five, at least in Russia. In that story, Steve Yzerman is always a supporting act, an important part of the story but never a main character.

But in the story of Steve Yzerman and Sergei Fedorov…

Fans used to say that the Wings would retire two numbers, side by side: 19 and 91, the captain and the franchise superstar. There was never a doubt that they would retire Stevie’s number, especially after he retired in 2006 still on good terms with the team. They gave him the C on the corner of his banner.

But Nick Lidstrom was right; the Ilitches have very long memories, and they have never forgiven Sergei for leaving.

If Steve did, Sergei wouldn’t know. Sergei hopes he did.

“He was the best person I ever played with. Better than Chris Chelios, Pavel Datsyuk, or Brendan Shanahan. Maybe better than Pavel or Alex. It’s not just how good he was on the ice—It was who Steve was as a person. Always so selfless and humble and good. He was there from the start, when I first got to Detroit, and he was still there when I left, a constant in my life when I was with Detroit, when everything else was changing.

“I used to say that I would show him around Moscow, maybe after we won a Cup.”

A few beats of silence while Nikita waits for Sergei to continue, before he asks, “Did you?”

“No. We were younger, then. And you know, the NHL changes your life. Maybe the things you used to think about when you were younger—They don’t happen. Your dreams change.”

Sergei shakes himself out of the memory, a little annoyed with himself for sounding so sad. “But you’re still young. And you’ll have lots of fun playing for Stevie, I’m sure. You’ll be fine.”

He hands Nikita the papers that he came to pick up. “When is your flight?”

“Next Tuesday.”

“Okay. If you ever need a gym or anything during the summer, come here anytime. You’re always welcome in my home.”

Nikita shuffles the papers a little as he looks through them, and then he stands and looks at Sergei, a bright and determined look in his eye. “Thank you, Mr. Fedorov. I really appreciate you talking to me and telling me your story.”

Sergei shakes the hand that Nikita offers. “Sergei. Call me Sergei. Good luck in Tampa Bay, Nikita. And tell Stevie—”

He pauses, unsure what message he wants Nikita to pass on. There’s so much to say, too much to entrust to a boy. It would feel wrong not to say something to Steve though.

Nikita squeezes his hand, a firm pressure. His eyes are very blue, very sure, as sure as Sergei was when he was his age, when he was so young with his whole life ahead of him. When he lets go, Nikita says in that quiet voice of his, “Maybe you should tell him yourself, Sergei.”

 

The door clicks quietly behind Nikita, and Sergei stares after him for a moment, suddenly alone. He looks at his watch. It is just past 2 in the afternoon, which should be 7 in the morning in Tampa, but Steve was always an early riser.

He answers on the fourth ring.

“Hello?”

“Hi Stevie.”

“Sergei.” Steve’s voice hasn’t changed in the years since, still low and a little quiet. Steve never spoke with much volume, but no one could ever mistake the authority behind his words.

They haven’t spoken in so long. Since the last time that they were pulled together by the NHL and their superstar careers, back in Detroit in 2007. Five years ago, Steve on the ice speaking to their fans as his number went into the rafters, and Sergei a safe distance away in a box in the stands, anonymous. No one else had known that he was there.

“You haven’t called,” Steve says. It doesn’t sound like an accusation. “I haven’t seen you since my jersey retirement ceremony.”

“Busy playing in KHL. Still had a little hockey left in these legs, until last year.”

They share a laugh, the kind of laugh that only retired players can understand, half-amused at the joke and half-regretful that their time is over.

“Yeah, I saw that you’re fully retired now. And the new GM of CSKA. Congrats on that, by the way. That’s a hell of an accomplishment.”

Sergei thinks about 22 years ago, leaving this very team for Detroit, and Stevie. Funny how he ended up back here. “Thank you. I—Stevie, I wanted to call because one of our players, actually. You drafted him.”

“You’re calling about Nikita Kucherov?”

It would be crazy to say that Steve sounds disappointed, wouldn’t it? Sergei is not someone who entertains fantasies.

“I just talked to him. Gave him papers so he can move to America. Wished him luck.”

There’s quiet breathing on the other end, and then Steve says, “Thank you for that, Sergei. I really appreciate it.”

“He’s young. And Stevie—Nikita is good. He’s very very good. He wants to play, and he works hard and very skilled and was one of the best in our program. I like him. I hope he plays good hockey for you.”

“I hope so too. He won’t be alone here, you know. He’ll have a few other Russians to keep him company, like you with Igor and Slava and Kozzie and Vladdie.”

“Will feel like Detroit. Steve Yzerman’s own Russian Five.”

“Well, what can I say. You have good players.”

“Best in the world.”

“Hey now…”

“World Championship in ‘89 and ‘90, Stevie. And ‘98 Olympics.”

“Conveniently forgetting the ‘02 Olympics though, eh?”

Sergei concedes that point, laughing until they both lapse into silence. Steve’s laugh makes something in Sergei grow quiet and warm, even if it also makes him ache a little in places that haven’t hurt in years.

“Take care of Nikita, okay Stevie? Like you did for me.”

“I will. You know I will.”

“Okay. That’s good.”

“And even when I’m not in the dressing room, we have a young superstar a couple years older than him who’ll get Nikita settled in. Steven Stamkos. He’s the captain type—I’m sure he’ll look after Nikita. Nothing for you to worry about.”

Stamkos. Sergei remembers him. Young and blond and Canadian, with that world-class player gravitas that had come easily to Steve back in the day. Not as handsome as Stevie was though, in Sergei’s opinion. Couldn’t really hold a candle to Steve now, even.

That is how the Americans say it, yes? Holding a candle to. No one could hold a candle to Steve Yzerman, not then, not now.

“That’s good,” Sergei says again. “Tell Stamkos that Sergei Fedorov says thank you.”

“Yep. Will do. He'll be excited. I already talked to him, but I’ll pass on your message.”

Of course Steve already thought ahead about how to settle Nikita in. Steve always cared so, so much, was always a good leader and a better person. He always made everyone around him better.

And those years of silence or relative quietness since 2003, they had been a little rough for Sergei, who had grown used to the steady hand of Steve Yzerman. He’s survived just fine in those years without Stevie, but he admits it—He’d missed him, very much.

He wishes he’d called. He wishes he’d called when Steve had retired, when Steve had been appointed the new general manager in Tampa Bay two years ago, when Steve’s second draft consisted of him drafting three Russians in a move eerily similar to Detroit’s draft strategy in 1989. He wishes he hadn’t kept his distance.

But that was just the Russian way.

“How is Moscow?” Steve asks, into the comfortable silence.

“Good. Nice office. How is Tampa?”

“Busy. You know how it is. Too many contracts to negotiate, bunch of agents threatening to knock down my door on behalf of their players. It’s beautiful here though, really nice for evening walks. Very sunny.”

“Good for tanning?”

“Yeah,” Steve laughs. “You always liked that, didn’t you. Hey, remember that first summer, when you stayed with me? You were always tanning by the pool, and you had the abs and your body was—You had the best body I’ve ever seen. Half the neighbors showed up whenever you took your shirt off.”

Sergei leans back in his chair, eyes half-closed. He grins as he recalls that summer. “Really? I thought they came for you.”

“No no, it was definitely for you. See, I was old news. But _you_ —”

The words come more easily now, like floodgates opening, Steve talking soft and amused on the phone, and Sergei lets his voice sweep him away, back, back, into the past again…

 

They can’t talk forever. Eventually, the conversation slows, the memories are put on hold, and Steve says, “I do have to go in to the office today.”

Sergei’s heart is lighter than it’s been in a long time. He’s a little reluctant to let Steve go, unsure of when they’ll talk again, when Sergei will have another excuse to call and reminisce. “Yes. Work to do.”

“It was good to talk to you.”

“You too. Glad I called. I won’t wait so long next time.” He laughs a little.

On the other end, Steve clears his throat, and Sergei is about to say goodbye and hang up when he says, very suddenly, “Sergei, wait.”

Steve sounds almost nervous, his famous control slipping for a second.

“Yeah?”

When Steve speaks—Sergei doesn’t know how to describe it.

“You know, we never talk about—when we were in Detroit…Tell me it wasn’t just in my head. I know we had the weight of the city on our shoulders and it was never the right time, not with the pressure and then our careers putting a strain on us, but tell me it wasn’t just me—”

There’s a lump forming in Sergei’s throat, and he’s too old for this, for the butterflies in his stomach, for the way his heart races. He doesn’t need to ask what Steve means, because he thinks about it too, he tries not to, but he does. He licks his lips and says, “Not just you, Stepka.”

It’s not a name that Sergei uses often. It’s too intimate, too Russian.

Steve is quiet for a long, long moment, and then he says, “No one’s called me that in a long time.”

And what is Sergei supposed to say to that? Nothing, except “Stepka—”

“Well, I was thinking, if you have time this summer…How do you feel about Florida? Just thought that maybe you’d like to see the area, get an idea of where Nikita is gonna be living—”

And Sergei is stuck, the words stuck on his throat, his hand frozen on the phone.

Somehow, it always seemed that Tampa was Steve’s thing, a part of Steve that Sergei can never touch. It’s a sign that their paths have well and truly diverged: Steve in Tampa Bay, Sergei in Moscow, and both of them thousands of kilometers from Detroit, from anything that connected them.

But Steve is right that in Detroit, they’d had the weight of the city on their shoulders. And now?

Now, things are different. Maybe _too_ different, but who knows? They’re older, wiser. Retired. They have the whole rest of their lives.

And he would like to see Florida, Sergei thinks. He would like to see what Steve has done in Tampa: driven, competitive, ruthlessly clever Steve and his legendary vision both on and off the ice. Whatever he’s done, Sergei is sure that it is beautiful.

“Sergei—Come to Tampa,” Steve says. “You’ll like it, promise.”

He doesn’t ask Sergei to come see _him_ , but Sergei and Steve have always spoken a language that needs no translation. They have since the beginning, since that hazy summer in Bloomfield Hills, when Sergei was 20 years old and homeless and on the cusp of becoming a superstar. It hadn’t mattered then, that Steve spoke no Russian and Sergei barely any English. It doesn’t matter now.

“Okay, Stevie,” Sergei says, because he is Sergei Fedorov and Steve is still his captain, still the man that Sergei fell in love with, even half a world and 22 years ago. “Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> @DetroitRedWings: retire #91 you cowards
> 
>  
> 
> Much of this fic is based on truth: the details of Sergei’s defection (minus him staying with Steve—he actually stayed with Jim Lites), him using the same equipment as Steve and choosing 91 because it’s the reverse of 19, the glove/love story, the fairly famous injection story. [His five-goal night](https://www.nhl.com/video/memories-fedorovs-5-goal-game/t-277350912/c-55982903). He did also [reach out to Kucherov](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ddsk0xEV0AAYP6T.jpg) before Kucherov came to North America.
> 
> Steve Yzerman had an [extremely high opinion of Sergei Fedorov](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DdsDghRU8AAPQUQ.jpg) even before they were teammates, and he called Sergei the “greatest player on the planet” and built the Lightning based on his experience with the Russian Five.
> 
> Pics!  
> [Sergei Fedorov’s first day in America](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DegA0f2VwAAoAiC.jpg) and his [Russian twink vibes lmao](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DfRcnoxVAAAjwhq.jpg)  
> [1992 ALL STAR GAME PIC OR ENGAGEMENT PHOTO](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dc9jPLMV4AA59zH.jpg) — [Yzerman, Cheveldae, and Fedorov](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DeqOyJlVAAAwqyF.jpg)  
> [This recent recreation](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DeqO5qKUEAEjW3e.jpg) of [this pic from their youth](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dc9jQ1_VAAA53Sf.jpg)  
> [Numbers magic :)](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DeqO06_UcAANG7T.jpg) (And [the reasoning behind it](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DeqVsNBV4AAz-Qc.jpg))
> 
> By the way this was inspired in part by ["cause imma taste this shot (then i might taste you)"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14740055) so if you like the body shots scene...


End file.
